Alone in Tokyo
by sorchanator
Summary: Jim's in Japan. There's a woman, threats, and lots of drugs.


My favourite thing about Tokyo is how clean it is. The hotel room I'm calling from right now is functional, orderly, white and sparse. The Japanese know how to use space. The room isn't huge, but there's plenty of cupboards and drawers slotted in intelligently, and the floor-to-ceiling windows take the cake. There's a short pause in the conversation (not the Yakuza, nothing so boring as gangs), and I wander over to look out over the crisp city. It's dawn. The sky is paper-white and the art direction of the traffic crossings and the clear umbrellas is superb.

The caller returns to the phone. His breath is slightly shorter, and as he's not fat, he's scared. He lets me know that he'll do what he can. I squeeze out one of my cool threats, like toothpaste from a tube. There's silence. He puts his hand over his mouth so I won't hear his panicky breaths. And then it's hai, hai, arigato gozaimasu, konbanwa. I look at the clothes I brought hanging up just inside the open wardrobe and make a note to get an Issey Miyake made up. Miyake cuts like a French, but again, there's a real sharpness, a mattness, you don't get the same way in Europe.

My stomach gives a slight rumble. Food. I haven't eaten for, what, nine hours? It's five twenty three. I arrived yesterday afternoon and stayed up all night. Close my eyes to recap in detail. Small bowl of miso soup, some rice, didn't feel well, didn't have much more on the plane. I put on a mask as soon as I arrived. That's another thing. They think the mask thing is odd in Europe, but Europe is dirty. I kept my gloves on too.

Stopped off at the hotel to leave my luggage, shower and change. Chugged a double espresso, smoked five cigarettes in the car on the way to these pricks. Gouged the eye clean out of your man on the phone, didn't even get blood on myself. Like scooping out half a kiwi. Kept it dark, clear, dangerous. The Tokyo lads mistake games for flippancy.

Then… calls for hours. This wasn't what I signed up for. It was boring, but I knew the benefits wouldn't be, so I forced myself through it and three hours later I could do some coke, Patrick fucking Bateman, and went to the bar to pretend to be a yuppie. Must have spun a few stories, far-fetched, _obviously_, probably had some edamame beans along the way, more coke, more cigarettes, only one whisky and one vodka tonic. Still working.

A high-class hooker attempted to do business, I declined (the thrill is in the dance, that's what I'm coming around to lately), eh, then another fecking call with Nick Fury here and now I'm bored. Let's make a plan. I like plans. No, don't mistake plans for routine. I like excitement, and it's mildly thrilling, a thrill up the spine, to place your chips and watch the others lose. Setting things up so others go down. Sexy.

Okay. I shall pump myself with pills and go to sleep for a couple hours. I'll order that suit first, though, and if we press it hard enough I could have one by the time I'm ready to do business again. There's gotta be one man in this country of shortarses with the same measurements as Jim Moriarty, the leprechaun.

Go for a run. I need air, and Tokyo air is some of the best. Get my mind sharp. What I think about when I think about running. Works for Murakami, works for me.

I want a proper Japanese breakfast, I want rice and fish and vegetables. Ditto lunch, some good sashimi, I'll treat my poor stomach well, and Japanese cuisine doesn't clog you down and stop you thinking like British food. Dinner, I'll get one of the girls to have yakatori and sample some of that excellent Japanese beer, Asahi, mmmmmmm. You can tell I enjoy this country.

Obviously there's work to do. But it's easy. I just have to put a little pressure on the strings and they'll move accordingly. Someone else is holding the actual marionette. But it's the finer motions that make it count. This is not just crime. This is Jim Moriarty crime.

The thing about this city is, it's one of the only places I haven't got bored of yet. I'm rarely in the East, and I still feel like I fit here, or as much as I ever will. Everyone's so polite, if you were stupid you'd mistake it for deference or docility.

I order my Miyake and take some pills. It'll take a while for them to numb this mortal instrument, so I have time to clean my teeth, put on fresh boxers, stretch out on the bed and gaze at the box. I didn't think anything could be worse than Irish television, but Japanese TV is a special layer of hell. Shame, really. There's plenty good artists and writers and the like from Japan. But isn't there everywhere?- I'm slipping. A few moments of peace from my stirring mind before I'm in yet another lucid dream of coats around corners, forests of buildings, grime. At least in lucid dreams I can fly. But look, there's his coat whipping around the corner of St Barts again. I struggle to pull myself out of it and I'm back in the real world with a gasp. I've managed to twist the whole of the bed sheet around myself and I'm drenched in cold sweat. It's six thirty. I'll get up.

I was going to run to Shinjuku Gyoen but it's pissing it down and the umbrellas have increased twofold. This hotel has a gym, but it's full of idiots lumbering away. I have a look at the pool, which reflects the skyline onto the water quite pleasingly, but there's an aerobics class. I grit my teeth.

So exercise is out for clearing my mind. More drugs, vicar? But no. Any more coke and my nose will cave in. It's stinging a bit now, actually. So I yank open a window and smoke furiously, the tar prickling my nostrils. I have to hold an umbrella up so the rain doesn't douse the cigarette. It's five minutes before I realise how ludicrous I must look and go back inside.

I take a cold shower and stick some nicotine patches on. A rap on the door. 'Mr Holmes, we have your suit.' Just a little joke of mine. Of course I won't use my real name. I go to the door wearing the complimentary bathrobe and let the woman in to hang it up for me. She carefully straightens it and turns to face me, waiting for my reciprocal bow. I forget about the no-tip etiquette here and go for my wallet. A weight at my back, a sharp scratch across my face, teeth sinking into my shoulder, hands yanking at my hair.

I laugh out loud. They really stoop to these lengths? I grab her hair and manage to force her to the ground in one move. She still looks determined, bless her, and is kicking and scrabbling and gnashing her teeth. I somehow get my knees pinning her wrists down and grab my phone off the bedside table. 'Seb. They sent someone in. Come on.' The door is yanked open again and Sebastian tears her away from under me. He's too strong for her. The muffled boom of a gun with silencer on. A minimal trickle of blood.

'You okay, boss?'

'Obviously. For fecks' sake, get her out of here.' For now, her suit is the only thing stained and the carpet is flawlessly white. I make some dismissive waving gestures and he's gone, nodding in his quiet way. I check the suit. It's fallen off the hanger, but at least it's the right suit. So helpful.

* * *

The woman I'm eating dinner with is alright, I suppose. She had a miscarriage a few months ago and lives with mild clinical depression. Obviously, she didn't tell me this. We're talking about religion. I just mentioned that Buddhism is probably the least stupid out of all the religions. Her eyes flicker. 'Don't tell me you're religious too. Jayzus, I grew up in Ireland. I've had enough of that shite.'

'No, I'm not religious. But I'm… spiritual, I suppose.' She's not scared of me yet. She's wary, but she's thinking, _this is the guy they talk about in hushed tones_?

'Of course you are. You were raised Jewish and when your baby died you lost faith in there being a God and turned to your own, special snowflake 'spirituality'. You wish on every shooting star and 11:11 and you're _loving _Japan because you've been going to all the shrines and watching reverently and tying strips of paper onto trees. You even had a conversation with an old lady today that restored your faith in the universe's balance of life.' I shove a rice ball into my mouth.

Her eyes are glistening with tears. Glistening with the ghost of her past, oh, get over yourself. 'Have you been watching me?'

'No. I don't even know who you are, you're not much of a threat. I don't care.' This beer is excellent.

She blinks rapidly and tries to realign her features. A deep breath. 'So that's why they're scared of you.'

'What?'

'Because you can know everything about people just by looking at them.'

'No. No. It's really not like that at all. I can talk to people and work out, from the cadence of their voice, their idiolect, the dialect they use, the way they use language, who they are. It's linguistic psychoanalysis. I don't make deductions.'

'So what about acting?' She seems to have cheered up a little. She takes a great slug of her drink and pushes her plate away from her.

'As in, what about people who are excellent actors? Well, they're excellent actors. I can still tell they're acting. Just because they mimic the tone and the expression almost perfectly, they're still mimicking and when you have as fine an eye for detail as I do, it's easy to tell. For example, you fancy yourself a good actress and now you know what's so special about me you're straightening up and attempting to look steely. I'm bored and not hungry any more. Come on.'

As we leave the restaurant, she says in a lowered voice, 'They all think you're a sociopath but I don't think you are.'

We get in the back of the car. 'Hmm?' I always enjoy hearing amateurs attempt to psychoanalyze _me_. 'Go on, what's next. Psychopath, ADHD, Asperger's, narcissistic, antisocial, borderline, histrionic? What'll it be?'

She smiles. Turn up her IQ a few notches and she'd be really beautiful. 'None of them.'

'Ah, she's an experimental psychologist. Okay then. No diagnoses. Is it about my mother, my father, my quasi-incestuous relationship with my brother? Did the priest at Sacred Heart come a little too close at communion? Do I have a subconscious hatred of my own sex and wish to castrate myself? Honey, I've heard them all.' The city thrums with life, but right now it feels like a wasp's nest.

She starts to grin. The light in this car isn't so flattering for her. Soft yellowish light from above would suit her. 'None! I think you're simply a very intelligent man who made a conscious decision during his formative years to not feel too much, probably someone said the wrong thing at the wrong time and it stuck. Also, you have a power complex.'

'Don't we all? Everyone wants to either be dominated or to dominate. You- you want to be held. You didn't have a bad relationship with your parents, but it wasn't ideal, and they never told you they loved you. Awww. How saaaad.'

She's got used to the barbs. 'Spot on. The obvious conclusion for you would be that you like to dominate, but I think deep down, somewhere, you want to be fucked in the ass. And be helpless.'

'This isn't the point where you pull out a strap-on, is it?' It's okay. I'm in a good mood. Any other day she might have been shot in the tits and teeth and run over until she's nothing but a rare steak, but I'm feeling mellow.

We're back at the hotel. I leave tomorrow afternoon. I nod impatiently at the staff as we're bowed in. I take a closer look at her in the lift. She's small boned and she's wearing a simple black Balmain dress, with, predictably, Louboutins. Balmain were at their premium in the noughties. She's had this dress for a long time. Before she got married to the gang man and pissed him off by being better at his job than him.

She's rather clichéd once we're in the room, attempting to press me up against the wall, running her hands over the silk-cotton blend of my fine-looking new Miyake. I push her off rather roughly. Her self-esteem drops considerably, and she turns her back on me to wriggle out of her tight dress. Her arse is fantastic. Her lingerie is by Agent Provocateur- again, predictable. My eyes scan her stomach. She was only three months when the American intelligence tortured her and destroyed the foetus. And they say the Westerners don't do brutality.

The little-girl-lost act is getting dull. She kicks off her heels and sits on the end of the bed to peel off her stockings. Her toenails are freshly painted, and not professionally. She's not one of the women they use purely for seduction, not a Bond girl. She didn't have to be here tonight. She didn't have to have dinner with me. She specifically requested so.

I always wait until the last minute to take my clothes off. The only light in the room is the glowing of neon from the city. Midnight city. The voyeuristic air of the full-length windows turns me on. I go and grab her roughly by the hips. 'Predictable,' she says quietly, laughing at me. I rip her remaining underwear off, rip it in half. She's trying not to care, but it's some of the only expensive lingerie she owns and I just ruined it. A grin stretches my face. I bite her neck.

She doesn't have a Brazilian or a Hollywood. Not many women still keep a bush, well, a relative bush. Ah, the nineties. Simpler times. Did that sound nostalgic? I'm sorry. The nineties were boooooring.

I pull her closer, her legs up over my shoulders, and slide in slowly. 'Ah!' From her. Not me. I tend not to make noises.

'Look at me,' she whispers. I don't. So she takes my face in her own hands, eurgh, and tries to make me, but I'm not having any of it. I thrust faster and grit my teeth, looking at the city. Her arms are splayed over the pillow. Her eyes are closed and her mouth is open. The winking light of a helicopter in the distance. I rearrange her legs, put them around my waist, dig my fingers harder into her hips and buttocks, she'll have bruises.

'Ohhh.' So obvious. All the moves of sex are so obvious. I put my hand over her mouth. Her eyes open and she frowns, but she's too far gone, I can feel her approaching. She contracts around me and her hands clutch at the sheet, this bed was freshly made, I'll get them to change the sheets again. I'm too distracted, I need to concentrate on something and she's not doing it for me. I close my eyes and think of games and suits and power and cocks and murder and-

My head arches back on my neck and my eyes roll beneath my lids. Not the best orgasm I've had. I slide out of her again, slimy and suddenly repulsive. I pull the bathrobe around my shoulders and go for a piss. She stays where I left her, legs spread, arms akimbo. I look at myself in the mirror. See, this bathroom light would be most flattering on her, but on me- I just look sallow. I wash my hands thoroughly, go back into the room, pick up the phone and ask for a change of bedsheets.

'Get up.' I lift the corner of the sheet and roll her slightly to the side. 'Come on, you'd better go. The maid will be here in a minute.' She gets up and puts her stockings back on, puts her suspender belt and ripped knickers in her handbag. I smirk as she tugs her dress down over her bare arse. She's going to feel dirty and self-conscious.

I open the door to see her out, and remember my manners. 'Oh, thanks.' She turns to look at me, but instead of the wounded pride or anger I'm expecting, I see scorn.

'Yeah, thanks.' She laughs at something and shuts the door herself. Was that real? Get a grip on yourself, Jim. You've been drinking beer and you just came. She's trying to disarm you.

I go back to the window, get a cigarette out. The maid comes and goes as I smoke and wait for this woman, whose name I still don't know, to appear on the street. Fifteen minutes, twenty. Is she staying in this hotel? Oh shite. Who is she?

I text. 'Who was the woman I had dinner with?'

'We didn't send anyone, sir.'

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

* * *

I feel alone here. I didn't say lonely. Tokyo is a good place to be alone. You ever seen _Lost in Translation_? Yeah.

Although of course, I'm not alone. There's henchmen and enemies and allies and employees all over. There's Sebastian, constantly ready to pull a trigger, there's the car always circling the block. I'm never really alone.

What would I do if I didn't have to work here? What would I do for pleasure in Tokyo? I'm not a tourist, I'm not interested in the shrines and the pachinko arcades and the karaoke booths and Harajuku. I don't know what it is about this city. I feel uneasy today. Maybe it's because of the woman. I don't know. I don't know, I don't know.

I punch the wall and then cradle my knuckles. I _always _know. I always know. And if I don't know about it, it's not worth knowing. But I can't name what I'm feeling, and to be honest, that worries me.

Okay. If I can't name it straight away, I'll be logical. It's negative. So that eliminates all the positives and neutrals. Sad, angry, jealous, sick, doubtful, bored, despair, defeat, misery, depression- I can't be bothered to go on. I'm always angry. I'm never jealous. I'm always bored. I'm not emotional enough for abject despair or misery. This isn't depression, I don't think. I definitely feel sick. And I feel sick because I'm doubting my own ability. And I feel defeat because she made me doubt my own ability. Right then. These feelings impede my ability to function, therefore the next logical step is to block them. First, bring up a fake feeling and cover the real feeling with it. Next, find an activity I enjoy and distract myself with it. Then, go through all my unrelated problems and solve them instead. And finally, make something new. Change my look, enter a new field, cross the line, conquer a new country. I like the idea of Sweden. The Scandinavians know how to use space too. Right. Scandinavia it is.

I have a few hours until my flight. It's mid-morning. My emails are boring. Is there anything to do? I feel grubby. I want a massage to alleviate the tension spanning my back and shoulders. I get that done. I walk through Shinjuku in my surgical mask. I'm bored I'm bored I'm bored boredboreboredbrdkfgsdsfkzxc gb. I finish the Jeffrey Eugenides novel I'm reading. I go for a swim. And finally I'm being driven to the airport and I've wasted my time in Tokyo and I feel annoyed with myself and with those _fucking _cunts who ruined my time here and with _her, _that bitch. That bitch.

By the time we're at Narita and I'm being fast-tracked through to the plane and reading the newspapers on my tablet and then being emailed the real stories, I'm angry. I'm hopping mad. My teeth will be ground down to a fine powder at this rate. I stare at the ordinary people working outside on the runway with black fury. We're taking off now, and I pull the eye mask over my eyes and I've taken some pills and god, please Jesus, Mary and Joseph, let me sleep, let me have four hours of oblivion, Tokyo, je deteste, je t'aime, mwah. Sayonara.


End file.
